In the early days of telephone switching switching systems were usually directly linked via trunks. Such trunk connections were efficient in that there were a relatively limited number of switching systems and, thus, a reasonable number of connections to and from each switching office. However, as the number of telephone lines increased, local switching (also known as local-toll) had to be come more sophisticated; each switching office could not be connected to all of its neighbors, due to a large number of switching offices and telephone lines in a given local exchange carrier (LEC). Thus, local-toll switches emerged, which route telephone calls from an originating switch to a destination switch. Such local-toll switching involves sophisticated routing decisions and information being kept at the central local-toll location. That is, the local-toll office keeps information on all of the local offices and lines for purposes of routing calls directed to it. Such centralized routing, while increasing the delay in setting up calls, has proved more efficient than the prior hard-wired physical plant. The local offices no longer need to keep track of a large number of trunks going to a large number of offices; if a call is not locally connectable, the local office merely routes the call to the local-toll switch, which then has the responsibility of routing the call.
In current times, however, competitive access to the local telephony market is becoming a critical issue. Such local access requires a new, wire-line telephone service company to start with no physical plant and increase to the call handling capability of a local exchange carrier (LEC) in a matter of a few months. Such investments in physical plant may be prohibitive in the short run for startup competitive access telephone providers. Additionally, more telephone lines are being used for data transfer. For example, there is an increasing connection of facsimile machines, computers, and Internet connections being made over telephone lines. These data calls are generally more efficient and more economically connected by data transmission methods, rather than by traditional audio-band transmission.
Therefore, a problem in the art is that there is no current system for configuring a competitive access network without investing large amounts of capital.